Improve your direct marketing impact by
avoiding some common English errors

Using any direct marketing tools, the content of your document represents the key of your marketing strategy. It must be composed of a catchy title, of a short, but effective explanation and to get people to know more about your products and services. To avoid low grades lost business, here are a few examples of common English errors that you don’t want to do.

Internet/intranet
“Internet” is the proper name of the network most people connect to, and the word needs to be capitalized. However “intranet,” a network confined to a smaller group, is a generic term which does not deserve capitalization. In advertising, we often read things like “unlimited Internet, $19.” It would be more accurate to refer in this sort of context to “Internet access.”

Warrantee/warranty
Confused by the spelling of “guarantee,” people often misspell the related word “warrantee” rather than the correct “warranty.” “Warrantee” is a rare legal term that means “the person to whom a warrant is made.” Although “guarantee” can be a verb (“we guarantee your satisfaction”), “warranty” is not. The rarely used verb form is “to warrant.”

More importantly/ More important
When speakers are trying to impress audiences with their rhetoric, they often seem to feel that the extra syllable in “importantly” lends weight to their remarks: “and more importantly, I have an abiding love for the Canadian people.” However, these pompous speakers are wrong. It is rarely correct to use this form of the phrase because it is seldom adverbial in intention. Say “more important” instead. The same applies to “most importantly”; it should be “most important.”

Call the question
This is more a matter of parliamentary procedure than of correct English, but people are generally confused about what “calling the question” means. They often suppose that it means simply “let’s vote!” and some even imagine that it is necessary to call for the question before a vote may be taken. You even see deferential meeting chairs pleading, “Would someone like to call for the question?”

But “calling the question” when done properly should be a rare occurrence. If debate has dragged on longer than you feel is really warranted, you can “call the question,” at which time the chair has to immediately ask those assembled to vote to determine whether or not debate should be cut off or continue. The motion to call the question is itself not debatable. If two-thirds of those voting agree that the discussion should have died some time ago, they will support the call. Then, and only then, will the vote be taken on the question itself.

Potentially this parliamentary manoeuvre would be a great way to shut down windy speakers who insist on prolonging a discussion when a clear consensus has already been arrived at; but since so few people understand what it means, it rarely works as intended.

Chairs: when someone “calls the question,” explain what the phrase means and ask if that is what’s intended. Other folks: you’ll get further most of the time just saying “Let’s vote!”